The bees are dying in massive numbers

The bees are dying in massive numbers

This is sad, millions of bees across America are dying off and no one knows why. The absence of bees will ruin a $14 billion agricultural industry. It
could be the result of insecticides but no one is sure enough. It could be a number of factors finally reaching a critical mass for bees. Certianly
its something to watch in the near future. Bees are far more important than just for honey.

The phenomenon is recent, dating back to autumn, when beekeepers along the east coast of the US started to notice the die-offs. It was given the name
of fall dwindle disease, but now it has been renamed to reflect better its dramatic nature, and is known as colony collapse disorder.

It is swift in its effect. Over the course of a week the majority of the bees in an affected colony will flee the hive and disappear, going off to die
elsewhere. The few remaining insects are then found to be enormously diseased - they have a “tremendous pathogen load”, the scientists
say. But why? No one yet knows.

A friend lost his colony last year to what the county agent said was some kind of bacteria or virus or something.
Total bummer!

By Thomas_Crowne:
posted on 16-3-2007

When I was a kid some nutters used to go on about how killer bees were going to invade from Mexico or something and kill everybody in the US. They had
some paranoid scare and started to control the spread of bees and such then.

Now its full circle with bees dying out and people panicking about this.